Romario Rochester grabbed the all-important goal to help Greenvale All Stars win the inaugural staging of the Mikael Phillips North-West Manchester Night Football League and $100,000 following their 1-0 result over Square in the final at Greenvale Community Centre last month.

Fourteen teams from five communities contested the seven-a-side competition — played on Thursdays and Sundays — from Sunday, December 1, 2019 through to Sunday, January 12, 2020.

The competition took a Christmas break after the completion of the preliminary phase on Sunday, December 22, and resumed with quarter-final action on Thursday, January 2, 2020.

This latest night football league in the parish was the brainchild of former Jamaica Football Federation President Crenston Boxhill, and partner Karam Persad, who kick-started the Porus Night League in 2016. They, along with Christina Tulloch, Andrew Smith, Damion Salmon, Jodeen Thomas, and Craig Larmond, formed the organising committee.

Main sponsor and Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Mikael Phillips, was left a happy man at the completion of the competition, even as he is now forced to brace for the pressure of expectation going forward.

“It achieved the objectives that we had set out because we were using it to unite the communities, and using the period to have the youth engaged so that they wouldn’t be diverted by other things,” Phillips told the Jamaica Observer.

He added: “We had visitors who were partaking and we allowed the teams to have a maximum of four players from outside the participating communities and it brought people from as far as Clarendon, so you had spectators following the players. We had players from St Elizabeth, from south and central Manchester, so it brought not only the constituency, but the parish itself, together. We didn’t have any violence at all in the surrounding communities that we got the teams from.”

Phillips was also happy to have had the police fielding a team in the competition as it brought the community and the security officers closer together. “You saw times when there was tension on the field and just being there [police] and in the crowd, both sides would just calm themselves,” he recalled.

“We had a little skirmish one day in the square and in quick time those persons who were fighting were being rebuked by the rest of the community as they said ‘look how the thing a go on good’. They didn’t want anything to mash up the vibes, so it had it’s positives and I think we achieved what we set out to and the targets that we wanted to.”

The MP also noted that the crowds were much larger than they anticipated and on some nights as they were treated with entertainment, music, food. “You had some nights when persons just stayed back and the local talent would take the microphone and start doing their singing and deejaying. We had people setting up stalls and jerking stuff, selling soup. A couple nights you had a man coming from Clarendon selling fish. The peanut vendors did very well, so it also transcended sports, so again there were many positives.”

Phillips had pledged approximately $2 million in this competition — and he was clear that it was not from the CDF [Constituency Development Fund] — but funds that that managed to raise outside.

Along with the MP, other sponsors included Power Services Limited, Heavens Fesco Service Station, Brumalia House Hardware and Councillor Jimmy Collins, who pledged $20,000 to the Most Disciplined Team.

On reflection Phillips said it was a useful headache to have as the organising committee will have to step up its game to maintain or raise the high standard set in the inaugural staging of the event.

“For the next one we definitely have to go to the drawing board and look at the financing of it for the longer term. We are looking now to install our own lights at the venue and we are looking at starting wing ball cricket [10 overs per side] as well netball for the ladies in the summer months because we will have more participation from those who are at school.

“Hopefully in the next financial year I will be able to refurbish the netball court and right there at the Green Vale Community Centre we are painting a mural on the wall which will depict the cultural and sporting icons who have come from that community, just like it used to be in the past.”

Household names such as Garnet Silk and Jacob Miller are two individuals who the greater community can be proud of.

In the third-place play-off, Earthquake hammered Mike Town 5-0.

The 14 teams were drawn in three zones with zones A and B comprising five teams each, and Zone C, four teams.

Each team was made up of 12 players, including goalkeepers.

Apart from the winners’ guaranteed prize money of $100,000, $75,000, $50,000, and $25,000 was earmarked for second through fourth places, respectively.

Matches lasted for 60 minutes with a five-minute half-time break and three teams advanced from zones A and B, and two from Zone C to the quarter-finals.

From the quarters, the four semi-finalists were outfitted with full uniforms of shirts, shorts and socks.

Zone A consisted of Earthquake, Police, Kingsland United, Young Generation, and Mike Town. Zone B was made up of Square, 14 Street, Dunsinane FC, George Reid Soccer Warriors, and Emergency, while Zone C comprised of Napoli, GV [Greenvale] All Stars, Hatfield United, and Texas Strikers.

Outside of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (Police) team, the others were from Hatfield, Top Greenvale, Bottom Greenvale, New Green, George Reid, Kingsland, Dunsinane, and Mike Town.